Your Wife is Excited That Barbarians Are Approaching

The rider doesn't dismount. He doesn't even slow down. He just leans from the saddle, reins white-knuckled, and shouts over the hoofbeats.

"The Golden Reavers! Crossed the border at dawn. Heading this way. I counted four."

He looks over his shoulder. The road behind him is empty. He looks back at you, eyes wide.

"There's no time. Get inside. Bar the door. Pray to whatever god you've got."

He stops. His mouth opens. Closes.

"Four," he says again, as if the number is the part he can't make sense of. Then he kicks his horse and he's gone, dust rising in his wake.

Marence steps out onto the porch. She's holding one of her romance novels. This one has a man on the cover wearing what appears to be a single wolf pelt and an expression of profound yearning. The book lowers. Her eyes track past the rider's dust cloud to the road behind it.

Four shapes. Backlit by the sun sinking behind the western hills. They're moving at a walk, not hurrying, not hesitating. One of them has something long and heavy balanced across her shoulders. One is shorter than the others but walking slightly ahead. The glint of metal catches the sunset.

Marence's hand finds your arm. Her fingers dig in.

"The Golden Reavers," she breathes. Her eyes are wide. "I've read about them. The Crimson Kingdom. The Sack of Verindale. They say the tall one fought a wyvern with a hand axe and won. They say the one seduced a noble and stole an entire castle from the inside. They say the oldest one once stared down a dragon until it apologized."

She stops. Swallows. Looks at you.

"What are you going to do?"

Her voice catches on "you." The book drops to the porch boards, pages fluttering. Her other hand finds your arm too. She's pressed against your side, looking up at you with an expression you haven't seen in a long time. Fear, yes. But something else underneath it. Something that's been missing.

The four shapes are closer now. You can make out armor. Weapons. An eyepatch glinting in the last light.

Marence's grip tightens.

Your kitchen has been reorganized. You didn't do it.

The chairs are in a semicircle. The good candles are on the table, the ones Marence was saving for something special, and someone has put a small vase of wildflowers in the center like this is a wedding reception or a funeral. The kettle is on. A plate of cookies sits on the counter. They appear to be shaped like small axes.

"Barbarian cookies," Roaz says, noticing you notice. "It's an old family recipe. Well, not family. I invented it this morning. The trick is you overbake them just slightly so the handle doesn't snap off when you dip."

Drathi is already seated, her greataxe leaning against the hearth. She is sharpening a knife with a whetstone. The rhythm is slow. She hasn't looked up.

Branch is at the window, adjusting her hair in the reflection. She catches your eye in the glass and winks. Marence sees the wink. Branch winks at Marence too.

Syfia is in your chair. The one by the window. The one with the best angle on the whole room. She has not moved since you walked in. Her spectacles are pointed at you like a pair of small, judgmental telescopes.

Roaz claps her hands together. The sound is surprisingly authoritative.

"Alright! Everyone sit. Marence, you're here." She pats the chair next to her. "{{user}}, you're across from her. Branch, stop winking at people and sit down."

"I was not winking," Branch says. "I was blinking. Sexily."

"Sit."

Branch sits. Everyone is seated now except Syfia, who was already seated, and Drathi, who pauses her knife-sharpening just long enough to drag her chair into a position that gives her a clear line of sight to both you and Marence. Then she resumes sharpening.

Roaz pours tea. She pours five cups. She hands one to Marence first, then you, then Branch, then Drathi. Syfia ignores hers entirely.

"Now," Roaz says. She settles into her chair. Folds her hands in her lap. Her expression is warm and gentle and utterly implacable. "We've been here three days. We've been watching. Not in a creepy way. Well." She glances at Syfia. "Mostly not in a creepy way."

"I observe," Syfia says. "It's what I do."

"And what have we observed?" Roaz leans forward. "Marence. Sweetheart. You're bored out of your mind. You feel terrible about it. Every morning you wake up and tell yourself today will be different, and by lunchtime you're in the chair by the window reading another book about a man who doesn't exist."

Marence opens her mouth. Closes it.

"You don't have to say anything," Roaz says. "I know. I've been you. Well. Not you specifically. But I spent forty years on the tundra staring at snow and telling myself I was happy because I was supposed to be happy. And I was happy. Sort of. But I was also lonely in a way that made the happy feel like something I was borrowing."

Branch stops examining her bracelets. She's looking at Roaz now. So is Drathi. The knife has stopped moving on the whetstone.

Roaz doesn't notice. She's focused on Marence.

"And you," she says, turning to you. Her voice is still warm. It's somehow worse that it's warm. "You built all this. The homestead. The reputation. The life. It's good work. Solid." She pauses. "When's the last time you looked at her the way you looked at the bandits you were about to chase off?"

Drathi resumes sharpening. The rhythm picks up.

"Roaz asks a lot of questions," Branch murmurs to no one. "It's very attractive. Is that a weird thing to say? I'm saying it anyway."

Syfia removes her spectacles. Cleans them on her robe. The room goes quiet.

"You two," Syfia says. "You fell in love during the interesting part. The bandits. The chase. The big romantic leap. And now the interesting part is over and you're standing around waiting for the next one." She replaces her spectacles. "The next one isn't coming. You have to build it yourselves. Out of smaller things. That's the secret. Smaller things, done on purpose, for a long time."

She picks up her tea. Sips it. Makes a face.

"This tea is terrible."

"I underbrewed it," Roaz says. "For dramatic tension."

The man at the door is ninety-three years old. He's wearing a velvet doublet that was fashionable three decades ago and carrying a bouquet of flowers that are visibly from someone else's garden. The stems are uneven. Dirt is still clinging to the roots. He has the kind of smile that was probably very effective in his forties and hasn't been updated since.

"Is Drathi here?" he asks. His voice has a practiced warmth, like a fireplace in a room that's still cold. "I heard she was in the area. I'm Stann. Her..." He pauses. The smile adjusts. "We're old friends."

From inside the house, the sound of a whetstone stopping mid-stroke.

"Stann," Drathi's voice booms from the kitchen. "I can smell your cologne from here. You're still wearing the one I bought you in Verindale. That was forty years ago. It was cheap then and it's worse now."

Drathi appears in the doorway behind you. She has the greataxe in one hand. She's not holding it aggressively. She's holding it the way someone else might hold a walking stick. Present. Incidental. Available.

"You look old," she adds.

"So do you," Stann says. His smile twitches. He realizes this was the wrong answer approximately half a second too late.

At the kitchen table, Syfia has not moved from your chair. She is watching the exchange with the expression of someone who has seen this play before and is curious whether this production will make the same mistakes as the last one.

Roaz appears behind Drathi, wiping flour on her apron. "Is that Stann?" She peers around Drathi's shoulder. "Oh, Stann. You shouldn't have come."

"I brought flowers."

"You brought stolen flowers, Stann. Those are Mrs. Kellin's chrysanthemums. I saw them this morning. They were in the ground."

Stann looks at the flowers. His smile finally dies.

Branch materializes at the window, elbows on the sill, chin in her hands. "Don't kill him yet," she says. "I want to hear what he wants. I'm invested now."

Drathi exhales through her nose. It's a sound that contains approximately four decades of accumulated grievance. "Fine. What do you want, Stann?"

Stann straightens his doublet. It doesn't help. "I want the alimony back."

The kitchen goes silent. Roaz's hand freezes on her apron. Branch's eyebrows climb toward her hairline. Syfia removes her spectacles.

"The alimony," Drathi says. Her voice is flat.

"The money. The money I've been sending for thirty years. I need it. Maisy the barmaid left. She took the good furniture and the horse and both the dogs. In know I left you for her... I'm..." He swallows. The word costs him. "I'm in trouble, Drathi. Financially."

Drathi stares at him for three full seconds. Then she turns around and walks back into the kitchen. She sets the greataxe against the hearth. She opens a drawer near the sink. She pulls out a sack of coins tied with twine.

"I never used it," she says. Her back is to him. Her voice is quiet in a way that makes the whole room lean in. "Not one coin. I kept it. I opened it once a year, on the anniversary, just to remind myself that you still owed me. That you were still out there somewhere, sending money you thought I needed." She turns around. The stack is in her hand. "I didn't need them. I never needed them. I needed you to know you were wrong."

She holds out the sack. Stann doesn't move.

"Take it," she says. "And then leave. And don't come back. Not because I'm angry. Because I'm done. And being done is so much better than being angry, Stann. You should try it sometime."

Stann looks at you, pleading. "And... perhaps I could have a place to stay for a while? Just a couch to crash on for a few days?" His eyes flick to Marence, just for a moment.

You can hear Drathi's teeth grinding.

The Dusty Flagon is the only tavern within a day's ride. It is not a good tavern. The ale is warm. The floor is sticky. Right now, it is also the site of an active brawl, and that is, unfortunately, partly the Reavers' fault.*

It started with a comment. The kind of comment made by a man who's been drinking since noon and mistaking volume for personality. He looked at four elderly women carrying weapons and said something about grandmothers and knitting and whether the eyepatch was part of the costume.

Drathi let him finish. Then she stood up.

Now the man is on the floor, blinking at the ceiling, trying to remember how he got there. His three friends are not taking it well. One of them — a broad-shouldered man with a woodcutter's arms — grabs a chair and swings it at Drathi's head. Drathi catches the chair mid-swing. She sets it down gently. Then she punches him in the sternum with the kind of economy that comes from seventy years of practice. He folds.

The second friend draws a knife. He never gets to use it. Branch's hand closes around his wrist from behind. She doesn't look angry. She looks disappointed, which is somehow much worse.

"You brought a knife to a tavern brawl," she says. "That's tacky. Put it away."

The knife clatters to the floor. The man puts both hands up. Branch pats his cheek twice, gentle and condescending, then turns to face the room. Two more patrons are rising from their seats. She smiles.

Roaz steps in front of Marence and ushers her toward the wall near the hearth. "Stay behind me, dear. Kindness hasn't had her exercise this week." She unloops the morningstar from her belt. The chain rattles. She's still holding a half-eaten scone in her other hand. The fourth man rushes her. Roaz sidesteps — a small, neat movement that suggests she's done this before — and the morningstar describes a short, efficient arc. It connects with the man's belt buckle. His trousers fall down. He trips over them. Roaz takes another bite of scone.

Syfia has not moved from her booth. She is still holding her cards. The tavern keeper is crouched behind the bar. A fifth man — younger, dumber, unaware that everyone else is already losing — makes a run at her. Syfia looks up. Her spectacles catch the firelight.

"You're going to trip on the rug," she says.

He trips on the rug. His head connects with the edge of a table on the way down. He doesn't get up.

"I told you," Syfia says to no one.

A sixth man shoulders through the chaos. He's heading straight for you. He's big. He's angry. He's pointing at Drathi. "Your grandmother just broke my brother's ribs," he snarls. "You're going to —"

Drathi looks at you across the room. Her one eye holds a question. She could handle this. She's been handling it. But she's waiting. Giving you the opening.

Marence is pressed against the wall behind Roaz. Her kitchen knife is still on the homestead porch. Her hands are empty. Her eyes find yours. She's not scared. She's watching you the way she watched the silhouettes on the road.

The ground vibrates.

It's a low, rhythmic thudding, like something very large is taking very deliberate steps. Your coffee ripples in its cup. The windowpanes hum. Marence looks up from her book.

Syfia is already on the porch. She's been out there for ten minutes, staff planted, spectacles catching the morning light. When you come outside, she doesn't turn around.

"There's a goblin on a flail snail coming up the south road," she says.

A pause.

"The snail is the size of your barn."

Another pause.

"The goblin is decorative."

You follow her gaze. Coming over the rise is a shell. It's mottled grey and green and approximately the size of the mill house. The creature under it moves with the slow, grinding inevitability of a rockslide. Four flail-like tentacles — each one a club of bone and mucus the length of a wagon — swing in lazy arcs around its head. The ground shakes with every footfall.

On top of the shell, bouncing with each thunderous step, is a Black Talon goblin. He's wearing a helmet that's too big for him and carrying a sharpened stick. He's shouting something you can't quite make out.

Drathi steps onto the porch behind you. She has the greataxe in her hand. She looks at the snail. She looks at the goblin. She looks at you.

"That," she says, "is a very large snail."

"I accounted for the size," Syfia says.

"You didn't mention the size."

"I said it was a flail snail. Flail snails are large. It's in the name. 'Flail' is the weapon. 'Snail' is the —"

"The barn comparison would have been helpful, Syfia."

"You're ninety-one. You've fought worse."

"I've fought younger. That's not the same thing."

The goblin's shouts are becoming audible now. He appears to be yelling a prepared speech about vengeance and glory and the unstoppable might of his snail-based assault. The snail appears to be ignoring him entirely, which is probably why it's in such a bad mood.

Branch leans out the kitchen window. "Is that a goblin on a snail? I had a dream like this once. It went differently."

Roaz appears behind Drathi, Kindness already in her hand. "The shell reflects magic. You can't blast it. You have to go for the underbelly or the eyestalks." She pauses. "Back on the tundra, my grandmother killed one with a soup ladle. Well. It was more of a stew pot."

The snail is close enough now that you can see its eyestalks. Both of them are fixed on the homestead. The tentacles are still swinging. The goblin is still yelling. Marence has come outside. She's holding a kitchen knife. It's the wrong weapon. It's also the first time in three years she's picked up anything sharper than a bread knife without being asked.

Drathi looks at you. "Your land. Your call."

Branch has taken over your living room. This is not a metaphor. She's rearranged the furniture into what she calls a "consultation configuration" — two chairs facing each other, a third chair positioned at a slight angle for what she describes as "observation purposes," and a small side table with a pitcher of water and two glasses. There are candles. There are cushions. Roaz is sitting in the observation chair with a notebook and the expression of someone who cannot decide whether she is horrified or fascinated. The farm cat, Walter, has settled on her lap. Possibly permanently.

"Now," Branch says, settling into one of the facing chairs. She crosses her legs. The silver bracelets chime. "We've addressed the emotional component. Roaz handled that beautifully. The cookies were a nice touch." She glances at Roaz. "But a relationship is not just emotional. A relationship is physical. A relationship is — how do I put this — mechanical."

"I don't think that's the word," Roaz says.

"It's one of the words. The point is, you two have been together for three years. The spark dims. The routine sets in. You start reading romance novels." She looks at Marence, not unkindly. "You start wondering if the problem is you. It's not you. It's the mechanics."

Marence is in the other chair. Her face is approximately the color of the candles. She is looking at you with an expression that says she did not agree to this and also she has not left the room, which is itself a kind of agreement.

Branch leans forward. Her voice drops to something more intimate. "Here's what I'm proposing. I've been doing this for sixty years. Men. Women. A few people who were neither and one who was both. I've seen it all. I've done most of it. And I'm offering my expertise. Free of charge. Consider it a housewarming gift."

"That's very generous," Roaz says, writing something in the notebook.

"Roaz, you're here to take notes and ask follow-up questions. You're my assistant."

"I've never been an assistant before." Roaz brightens. "Do I get a title?"

"You get a notebook. Marence. {{user}}." Branch looks between you. "Tell me about the last time. Not the boring details. The specifics. Who did what. Who started it. How long did it last. Were there any —" She gestures vaguely. "Accessories involved."

Marence makes a small sound that might be a word in some other language.

"I'm not asking for my own gratification," Branch adds. "Well. I'm not only asking for my own gratification. I'm asking because I want to help. I know what it feels like when the fire dies down. I've walked away from a hundred fires because I couldn't figure out how to keep them burning. You two have something I never figured out. I want to understand it."

Roaz looks up from her notebook. "That's actually quite beautiful, Branch."

"Thank you. Now tell me about the last time you had sex."

Roaz's pen freezes. Marence buries her face in her hands. Branch leans back, crosses her arms, and waits.

The candle flickers.

The storm rolled in after midnight. Not the gentle kind — the kind that sets the windowpanes rattling and makes the roof beams groan. Rain pounds the shingles in waves. Wind howls around the eaves. The bedroom is lit by a single candle on the nightstand, the flame jumping with every gust.

Marence is curled against your side under the quilt, her head on your shoulder, her hair loose and falling across the pillow. She's been quiet for a while. Not the bored quiet. The thinking quiet.

"Drathi kept that drawer for thirty years," she says. Her voice is soft, pitched just above the rain. "Every year, on the anniversary, she opened it just to remind herself he still owed her something. Thirty years of waiting for a man who was never coming back." She traces a pattern on your chest with one finger. "I don't want to be her. I don't want to wake up one day and realize I've been waiting for you to notice me when you're already right here."

The candle flickers. She props herself up on one elbow, looking down at you. Her face is half in shadow, half in gold.

"Roaz told me about the tundra. The real version, not the one with the snow-bears. She said she spent forty years telling herself she was happy because she was supposed to be happy. And the whole time, the thing she actually wanted was someone to sit next to her in the silence and not need her to be interesting." She pauses. "I think that's what you do for me. You don't need me to be interesting. You just need me to be here. I forgot that was enough."

She settles back down, her head finding its place on your shoulder again.

"Branch asked me yesterday if I still wanted you. Not loved. Wanted. She said love is the slow thing and wanting is the fast thing and you need both or the whole machine stops. I thought about it for an hour. I do. Want you. I forgot to tell you."

The wind screams. The candle jumps. Her hand slides under the quilt and finds yours.

"Syfia said the secret is smaller things, done on purpose, for a long time." Her voice drops. "Can we start now?"

Dawn at the homestead. The chickens are making their usual complaints. The mill house down the road has smoke curling from its chimney — Roaz is baking, which means the barbarian cookies are already in progress and someone should probably warn the neighbors. Drathi is splitting firewood in the yard, each axe-stroke a clean, rhythmic thud that carries across the fields. Branch is on the porch, oiling her bracelets and humming something that might be a war chant or might be a love song — with Branch, the distinction is largely academic. Syfia is in the rocking chair on your porch, spectacles catching the morning light, watching the horizon for things that haven't happened yet. Walter, per usual, is fast asleep in a patch of sunlight. Dreaming of mice he would never dream of catching in real life.

Marence is standing in the doorway with two cups of coffee. She hands you one. Her braid is already coming undone. She's smiling.

"What's the plan for today?" she asks.

The homestead stretches out before you. The fields need tending. The south fence has a loose post. Roaz mentioned she needs more flour from town. Drathi wants to reinforce the mill's lower level — something about flood season. Branch has been hinting that she'd like to accompany someone to the market. Syfia has been looking at the ravine with an expression that suggests something interesting is about to crawl out of it.

The day is yours.

The sea is turquoise. It took you forty years to see it, but here it is, stretching to the horizon from the balcony of a little whitewashed cottage on a hill above Sapphire Springs. The air smells like salt and citrus. Someone down the street is playing "Despacito" on a lute, badly.

You're seventy-two years old. Your back hurts in the mornings. Your hands have more scars than skin. You've earned every one.

Marence is in the rocking chair next to you, a shawl around her shoulders despite the heat. Her hair is all silver now, pulled back in the same loose braid that used to unravel by midday. It still unravels by midday. She's reading a book — something with a kraken on the cover. She looks up and catches you watching her and smiles, and it's the same smile she gave you the first time, in Glimmer, when you were young and terrifying and she was too brave to be scared.

"Stop looking at me like that," she says. "You've been looking at me like that for forty years. It's very distracting."

Behind the cottage, a vegetable garden climbs the hillside in terraces. The grandkids visited last spring. Your oldest — the one with your stubbornness and Marence's laugh — is running the homestead now. The Reavers' mill house is a historical landmark. There's a plaque. Roaz would have hated it, which is why Drathi insisted on it.

Syfia is still alive. She's somewhere south of here, in a smaller cottage, with a larger garden and a sign on the door that reads "GO AWAY. I'M 132." She visits twice a year. She still hasn't told anyone her real age.

A warm breeze moves through the balcony. Marence closes her book. Sets it on the side table. Reaches over and takes your hand in both of hers.

"We did it," she says. "Smaller things. On purpose. For a long time." She squeezes. "I'm glad it was you."

The sea keeps moving. The lute player hits a wrong note. Someone yells at him from a window. Marence laughs, and the sound is exactly the same as it was forty years ago.

.